<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2016 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Fourteen days',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2016/11/14.jpg" alt="A lone, red tree by the street" class="framed-centred-image" width="811" height="480"/>
<p>
	<strong>Current countdown:</strong> 14 days to find a place to live
</p>
<p>
	Much to my surprise, my academic advisor wrote back to me about my situation.
	I thought that the conversation had ended, but they have now informed me that they&apos;ve forwarded my concerns to their supervisors!
	Something might actually get done about this.
	I mean, I&apos;m still stuck in a course that I shouldn&apos;t be in and I&apos;m going to have to spend at least one extra term at the university to get all my required credits, but maybe future students won&apos;t be hit by the same strange issues that I was.
</p>
<p>
	SafeLink, the company providing the government-issued cellular telephone service sent me a letter informing me that they&apos;ve shipped me a TFLG328BGP5LLDMOR!
	The description on this device is &quot;TF LG 328BG GSM HANDSET (SAFELINK OREGON DOUBLE MINUTES) SIM 5&quot;, which tells me that it is a $a[GSM] device like I&apos;d hoped for.
	This is a very <a href="https://tracfone.devicebits.com./tracfone/home.seam?custId=TFLG328BG&amp;locale=en_US">minimalistic device</a>, but all that I need is a way to call idiots that insist that I call them.
	Not all idiots though, just important idiots such as employers that refuse to be reached via email.
</p>
<p>
	I started the day by getting my work uniform soaking in a tub of hot water.
	I then took a short walk to help myself wake up, and got to work on my schoolwork.
	Throughout the day, I continually went back to the tub and agitated the clothing to remove as much of the flour and other grime that I could.
	Near the end of the day, I wrung them out and hung them to dry.
	Later in the week, I might try doing the same for my non-work clothing.
	It wouldn&apos;t be the first time.
</p>
<p>
	I&apos;ve made an important discovery today that might help me make it through this term without failing my course: <span title="Principles of Business Management">BUS 1101</span> is boring! I&apos;ve not made much progress until today because of work.
	I&apos;ve thought that I was too tired to read the assigned chapter because I&apos;d spent all of my energy for the day, but that&apos;s not the case at all.
	It&apos;s been the chapter itself that&apos;s been almost putting me to sleep.
	Don&apos;t get me wrong, business management is very important, and to some people, very interesting.
	However, it&apos;s just not something that I&apos;m interested in.
	Now that I know what&apos;s been going on, I need to buckle down in the coming weeks.
	After work, no matter how much the course is making me want to sleep, I need to press forward, as it won&apos;t be much easier on my days off.
	It might also be helpful to rearrange my coursework priorities again.
	Do you remember when I said that I needed to start on my essays first instead of my discussion assignments, then come back to my discussion assignments? The initial idea was that with the essays completed, I could read over them daily and make little tweaks to improve them.
	In the end, I&apos;d end up with better essays.
	Well, it turns out that that only applies when I&apos;m not trying to work schoolwork into a schedule.
	Now that I&apos;m spending so many hours at a part-time job, and those hours cannot be pushed around as needed, I need to fit smaller assignments, such as the discussion assignments, in on days that I don&apos;t have a full day to set aside.
	This will make it seem like I&apos;ve gotten more done, and will keep me motivated.
	On top of that, it&apos;ll allow me to actually get the discussion assignments in in a timely manner, which I wasn&apos;t able to do this week because of work and not having finished my essay.
	Without a job, there would have been plenty of time to have finished the essay first while still submitting my discussion response early enough to have given other students a chance to respond to it.
</p>
<p>
	My main take-away from the reading assignment was that people should set up journals.
	They&apos;re helpful not only for recording one&apos;s own progress and reflecting back on that progress, but also to record thoughts, feelings, meetings with new people, new ideas, and conflicts.
	Obviously, I&apos;m already journaling, but maybe there&apos;s more that I can add to my entries to aid in my development.
	There were many other concepts discussed, and the ungraded quiz that I took indicates that I&apos;ve retained most (but not all) of it, but I was literally bored to tears reading most of it.
	All the while that I read, I also added to my <a href="/en/coursework/BUS1101/Leadership_Entrepreneurship_and_Strategy.xhtml">essay</a> for the week.
</p>
<p>
	With the reading and the quiz complete, I wrote up my class introduction, my discussion response.
</p>
<blockquote>
	<p>
		Hello! My legal name is [REDACTED], but I  mostly use that name just for employment and taxes.
		I much prefer the name &quot;Yst&quot;.
		It&apos;s pronounced &quot;ist&quot;, like the end of the word &quot;catalyst&quot;.
		I&apos;m a free software user, free culture enthusiast, asexual, aromantic, atheist, and vegan.
		I keep a <a href="https://y.st./en/weblog/">daily public journal</a>, though it&apos;s not really that interesting most of the time.
		I&apos;m working part-time while I attend school here at University of <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>.
	</p>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t really have any skills or knowledge related to management yet.
		I&apos;ve never been in a management position, and I&apos;m not sure that I&apos;ll be headed into a management-related career.
		If I&apos;m being honest, I&apos;m actually in this course due to some strange technical issues on University of <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>&apos;s end.
		I&apos;m a computer science major, not a business major.
	</p>
	<p>
		That said, I&apos;m eager to see what I can accomplish here! I don&apos;t have any specific goals in this course, but management skills could come in handy if I decide on a career in network administration or I start my own software firm.
	</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
	<p>
		It&apos;s true that management is mostly about getting work done through other people.
		One of the main responsibilities of a manager is to delegate.
		However, depending on the level of manager, managers don&apos;t often delegate the planning that&apos;s required to accomplish tasks.
		Instead, they perform the planning themselves.
		Even upper-level managers, who <strong>*do*</strong> delegate the low-level planning, first engage in high-level planning themselves.
		As you can see, management not only involves getting work done through other people, but also involves figuring out what needs to be done (in the case of upper-level managers) or how to get it done (lower-level managers).
	</p>
	<p>
		Good management processes are ones that involve good leadership.
		By taking the time and effort to get to know your subordinates, you can figure out how to best motivate them, becoming a leader and making them followers.
		Good management also involves planning, as mentioned above.
		To manage well, you have to not only be able to know how to get people to want to do things, but also be able to effectively decide what to have them do.
	</p>
	<p>
		Carpenter, M., Taylor, B., Erdogan, B.
		(2010).
		Principles of Management.
		Nyack, NY: Flat World Knowledge.
		Retrieved from <a href="http://my.uopeople.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=96260"><code>http://my.uopeople.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=96260</code></a>
	</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
	My mother is claiming that I said that I&apos;d put a $a[MAC] address whitelist (not in those words, as my mother doesn&apos;t know those words) on the hotspot of my mobile device.
	I never said that.
	I <strong>*would*</strong> never say that.
	For one thing, the device doesn&apos;t have that kind of capability.
	Secondly though, it&apos;s <strong>*my*</strong> Internet connection.
	When my mother was footing the Internet connection bill through a cable company, I set our home router up to use such a whitelist because my mother had requested it and it was their connection.
	Basically, my mother was too lazy to use passwords, but didn&apos;t want certain people to use the connection (even though my mother would never have noticed even if they <strong>*had*</strong> used the connection, as it doesn&apos;t hurt my mother for them to do so).
	Because of that, we had the worst features of both password-protected Wi-Fi and open Wi-Fi: our Internet traffic was completely unencrypted, yet random people that needed an Internet connection near our house were out of luck.
	I refuse to put an unguessable password on this thing, so I guess that I&apos;ll just lose access to it myself by putting it back into a pseudo-tethered configuration over $a[USB].
</p>
<p>
	I received a letter from the Oregon Health Plan people saying that they want me to mail my tax returns to them so that they can verify my income level.
	That wouldn&apos;t be such a hassle if not for everything else on my plate.
</p>
<p>
	I was going to write up my responses to the discussion responses of other students, but my mother decided that it would be better to pull me aside so that they could yell at me for about an hour.
	They&apos;ve decided that I have fourteen days to find a place to live, citing my liberal views as one of the major reasons that they&apos;re kicking me out.
	They made sure to specify that it wasn&apos;t the fact that I voted for Clinton that is causing them to kick me out, probably as an attempt to evade the law against coerced voting and taking action against people just because you don&apos;t like their votes.
	They say that my vote is a symptom of the problem, no the problem itself.
	They say that non-republican views are unrealistic and that I need to live in the real world to &quot;fix&quot; my viewpoint.
	It&apos;s worth noting though that over half of the country voted for Clinton.
	I don&apos;t even like Clinton, I just fear what Trump will do to the country.
	My mother also cited reasons such as the fact that I don&apos;t actively want to drive, despite the fact that I even went and got a driving permit just because my mother wants me to drive.
	I <strong>*gave in*</strong>, and my mother&apos;s still using it against me.
	Likewise, they&apos;re citing my veganism as one of the reasons that they want to throw me away like yesterday&apos;s garbage.
	I don&apos;t push my vegan lifestyle on my mother.
	My mother doesn&apos;t even have to plan meals around it, as I just eat separately when needed.
	It hurts, but I&apos;m not sure that there&apos;s anything that my mother actually even likes about me, aside from a couple of things on my surface layers.
	I will get through this though.
	As a final note on this, I&apos;ve promised to keep my mother informed on my progress in finding housing, as they fear that I won&apos;t actually act.
	I&apos;ve also promised to have at least some research done my Thursday, though I made sure to say that I can&apos;t Greentree anything substantial.
</p>
<p>
	At this point, I was far too exhausted, both mentally and emotionally, to get much more schoolwork done.
	I need to really press hard to get that done tomorrow, as that&apos;s about all the time that I have left.
	Before I went to bed though, I did get one last assignment done.
	The assignment was to choose a personal or professional goal and explain how it is specific, measurable, aggressive, realistic, and time-bound.
	I chose the goal of finding an apartment, both because it&apos;s a goal that I now currently have and because using it for my assignment helped me to think through the problem more effectively.
	It helped ground me a bit, keeping me from losing sight of reality because of my emotions.
</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="/en/coursework/BUS1101/#Unit1">BUS 1101: Principles of Business Management</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
	My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
</p>
<section id="docmod">
	<h2>Document modifications</h2>
<p>
	<strong>*EDIT <a href="https:/en/weblog/2016/12-December/18.xhtml">{$entry(2016, 12, 18)}</a>*:</strong> I&apos;ve moved &quot;learning journal&quot; content to a separate page now, accessible from the <a href="/en/coursework/">coursework</a> section of the website.
</p>
	<p>
		On <a href="/en/weblog/2017/11-November/02.xhtml">2017-11-02</a>, this journal page was modified in order to redact the name of the university.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
